Made My Longest Cast Yesterday

Someone I know asked me to teach him to flycast because he's going on an Alaska cruise and wants to spend a day fly fishing for salmon. Now I'm not the world's greatest caster by a long shot, but I know enough to teach someone the basics so I said okay.

So we went out in a field and I went through the intro stuff - parts of the rod, the different parts of the back cast and forward cast, what a loop ought to look like, etc. Then I stripped off a bunch of line, not really paying close attention, to zing out a long cast to show what it should look like (admittedly, showboating a bit).

At the end of the cast, I felt a little tick, and when I looked, I had cast my backing knot a little ways beyond my tip-top line guide. I hadn't done that before.

Of course I acted totally nonchalant about it and just blew it off as "aaaand this is what my average cast will look like."

what you should have done is showed him some knots. thats what n00bs need, not a double hauling demo.

He is going with a guide on his Alaska trip. Guides tie all the knots (and untie all the unintentional ones).

Anyway, nobody learns to cast 90 ft in a couple days, but I've fished with too many first timers who couldn't get the line out past their rod tip on the first day. I've got him casting far enough to fish now.

Congrats, its a good feeling when you cast a whole fly line. I've done it on occasion but things have to be just right for me to do it. Folks say distance does not matter. I think that is because they can't do it.

Congrats, its a good feeling when you cast a whole fly line. I've done it on occasion but things have to be just right for me to do it. Folks say distance does not matter. I think that is because they can't do it.

I too have done it a few times, but only a few times and only when my double-hauling was perfectly timed.

Long, fairly accurate casts are necessary in the surf, on salt flats, on some lakes and on wide rivers where the fish are not holding along the banks. But for most trout streams I think short range tea-cup accuracy and drift control are far more important. It all depends on where and how you fish.

Yeah the type of water you fish makes a huge amount of difference. Around here, we mostly have very wide, slow-moving tailwaters with low gradient. In some places, it's almost like fishing a slow-moving pond. Here, a really long cast can really make a difference, especially when you've got to power a fly all the way to the far side of the river to get it in front of a fish that's feeding near a bluff in a deep pool or something.
On the other hand, I go out to Colorado sometimes, and a long cast can actually be counterproductive. The water is fast and the currents are complex, and if you cast to a fish 70 feet away, you're never ever going to get a decent drag-free drift that will do you any good. Ninety percent of my casts out there are under 30 feet. In the Smokies, it's even tighter - almost all roll casts on tiny creeks.

This month I'm carp fishing, and that's another different game altogether. Short casts aren't too useful because they spook from the boat. Extreme long casts are no good because I have to be able to see the fish well to target my cast. But being able to cast an over-weighted fly 40 feet with extreme accuracy is the difference between success and failure.